A mother's love

I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by incredible women. My mother is the youngest of her mother’s six children. Most of my grandmother’s other children moved across the country when they left home, but my mother only moved 3 and a half blocks from her childhood home where her mother still lived. I am my mother’s oldest child and from the time I was born until I was eight she was a stay-at-home mom. My only sibling is my brother who was born 3 years and 23 days after me, and we soon became inseparable. Most of my childhood memories before I started school are of my brother, my mother, my grandmother, and I spending almost every day together. We went to the zoo, to museums, to the art gallery, to the mall, and to the park. My father worked a lot when I was younger but I never felt as though I were lacking a parental figure. My grandmother was such a constant maternal presence in my life. She was already 80 when my brother was born but she was always staying active, physically and as a member of her community. She had six children, eight children, eight great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren. She knew all her neighbours and loved her daily walk around the block. She loved to garden and bake, mostly using the rhubarb from the overgrown plant the took up half her backyard. She went to so many of my dance performances and piano recitals. She was always there. When my parents started to let me walk to her house alone I went as often as I could. She let me watch as much TV as I wanted, which my parents probably weren’t thrilled about since they rarely let me have screen time. She made me crackers and cheese to snack on in breaks from playing with all the dolls and toys she kept for me. She loved watching me play dress up in all the clothes that my aunts, mother, or she used to wear that were overflowing from her multiple closets. She had the biggest laugh that couldn’t help but make you smile. She was who I wanted to spend every day with and who I wanted to be when I grew up.

One time I was playing with my brother and our friends at the park between my house and my grandmother's when it started to pour rain. Thunder roared and lightning lit up the sky. I don’t know why I didn’t go home, maybe my parents were out, or I didn’t have a key, but even though I was closer to home, I ran to my grandmother’s. We showed up on her doorstep and she gave me and my brother clean clothes to change into and put our soaking wet clothes in the dryer. She offered to do the same for my friends and gave us all towels to dry off. We sat in the living room with dripping wet hair, laughing, cause we knew everything was okay. We had found the safest place to be, a constant shelter from any storm that life might throw our way. That was what my grandmother’s house was to me. I used to have a recurring dream, more of a nightmare really, that I was being chased. The person chasing me would always change, from scary movie characters to strange unknown frightening men. All I knew was that I had to run away from them. I would run for my life through my neighbourhood night after night, terrified that I would be caught, that I wouldn’t be able to evade the person trying to catch me. No matter where I was in my neighbourhood, even after we moved to a new house a little farther away from where I grew up, I would always run to my grandmother’s. Every time I made it through her front door, I knew that I was safe, that I was home. Nothing bad could get me there, when I was in her house I knew that everything would be okay.

When I was nearing the end of high school my grandmother started to slowly get sicker. I moved in with her during a break from school to help take care of her after she had eye surgery. That was one of the last times I remember seeing her when she still felt like herself, surgery couldn’t slow her down. She would wake up before me and ring the doorbell so that I would come up from the basement to give her her eye drops. She kept trying to do everything herself and even take care of me. She was still the unstoppable woman she always had been but not much longer after that she started to change. She turned 95 and despite no formal diagnosis from a doctor she started to fade away. She walked less and less until she couldn’t even get herself from her bedroom to her favourite living room chair. My aunts took turns taking care of her full time with additional home care. My mother and I helped as much as we could as did her neighbours. Before long she barely seemed to understand what was happening around her, she couldn’t follow conversations and had a hard time remembering facts and faces. I tried to explain to her how I had gotten into university, in our city, and she got confused thinking I was going away for school because of the short trip I had told her I was planning on taking a couple of weeks before. She missed my high school graduation and by the time I went to my first day of university, I felt as though she was only an echo of the women she once had been. She had to be carried everywhere, she slept almost constantly and when she was awake and sitting up she seemed so far away. She died on September 22nd, less than a month since I had started school. She had been sleeping on her couch when she slipped away.

Losing someone you love to old age feels so slow yet simultaneously like it's happening all at once. In the blink of an eye the grandmother I knew who laughed out loud and loved to tell stories of life growing up on the farm and who used to always take care of me, now needed help for everything. She had been so stubborn and determined and vivacious but that had all fallen away until she was just a shell of the woman I loved so much. Who loved to read, and religiously watched movies and tv shows. Who kept everything, collecting books, newspapers, and magazines that I loved to look at. Who kept a diary for over 50 years. Who had told me all about her trip to Italy and had been so excited for me when I told her I was going to go that she had offered to help me pay for it, which she let me repay by vacuuming for her. Did I tell her how much it meant to me? All those moments we spent together? Did I show her pictures of my trip and tell her how much fun I’d had? Did I thank her, for everything she ever did for, for just being her? Did I tell her how thankful I was that of all the people in the world I was born as her granddaughter?

I try not to focus on my memories of my grandmother when she got sick. That wasn’t the woman I knew and loved. I loved the woman who watched the Amazing Race with me every week. Who loved solving puzzles then giving them to me to watch me try. Who read the newspaper every day and cut out her favourite comic strips to show me when I came over. Who watched the movies I brought home from the library with me and loved following pop culture. She was so much more than the woman she was reduced to by old age and sickness.

I will remember her as the incomparably strong-willed and incredibly kind woman who helped raise me and taught me so much.

She taught me the beauty of independence by living on her own for multiple decades. She taught me of the power of strength, of making your own choices and not apologizing for putting yourself first sometimes. She taught me that our legacy is the people we love and that once we are gone we live on in them. She left me all her diaries and whenever I miss her I need to only open a book and feel as so I am reaching across time and talking to her again. I carry her with me and know that her profound influence keeps her forever in my heart.

One of the most important things I learned from her is that her secret to living a long happy life was not to dwell on negatives. She would say that she only held onto positive memories and let herself forget all the bad memories. I try to live like that as much as possible, remember her advice and let my anxious mind let go of any potential upsetting memories. To focus on the good times and all that I have to be thankful for and emulate her optimism as best I can.

I never knew a world before my grandmother which is why it was difficult to fathom a world without her. I walked into my grandmother’s house the day after she died to help my mom start to clean up her old belongings. It felt like an empty black hole, devoid of life. My grandmother had been the heart of her house. She had filled it with love and made it into a place that always felt like home. That wasn’t because of the house but the woman who brought it alive. Without her, that house felt hollow, an echo of what it once was, and my world felt emptier. Like I’d lost a part of me I could never get back. That house that had been my refuge in dreams and in reality didn’t feel the same. It didn’t radiate comfort or safety in the same way. It just felt like an empty house that was bursting with painfully happy memories. Every room was devoid yet I felt like it was filled with ghosts. Spirits of my past, the happy memories I had playing on that ugly yellow carpet or walking with my grandmother through the halls with the peeling blue and pink paint. It felt bittersweet and all wrong to walk through the front door and not see her napping in her favourite green chair. I couldn’t be in that house without her, it felt haunted, a constant memory of what I once had that hurts so much knowing that those joyful days in that house are gone. It was her house since it was built and she stayed there until she died in that very house. There is a hole in that house without her that reminds me of the hole I carry with me. She doesn’t haunt the house, quite the opposite in fact; it is so painfully empty without her that I can’t bear it. It’s a hollow shell, the house that died with her.

My aunt bought the house and renovated it. My brother helped her and my mother visited but I only walked through the front door once. It’s all gone; the floors redone, the walls repaints, the furniture replaced, the fireplace removed. The house I knew, the place I grew up, where I spent so much of my childhood, where I have so many memories, where I spent the majority of my time with my grandmother is no longer here. The house looks the same from the outside but its insides have practically been gutted. I don’t know what I wanted to happen to the house and I know that it belongs to my aunt to change to fit her needs. All I know is that when my grandmother left this world her house was never the same and I don’t think I was either. I was eighteen and it felt like I lost a part of me. The little girl inside me who never learned to clean up her own toys because her grandmother always did it for her. My grandmother shaped me into the woman I am today but a piece of me, of that innocent little girl, was lost when she died. That house with all those childhood memories getting remodeled is just a symbol of that loss and sometimes it hurts to see my grief take on a physical form. My parents had long since sold the house where we lived up until I was twelve, my grandmother’s house that had been my second home growing upheld the other half of my childhood, and now it’s unrecognizable. The house I knew and loved is gone, as is the woman that made it the special place that it was. I have memories and photographs, bits and pieces, to hold onto the times in my life I desperately do not want to forget. It wasn’t really about the house, but the woman whose memory I don’t want to slip away. I want to move forward but stay grounded. To remember the woman who gave me so much and hope that if she saw me today I would make her proud.

It’s been two and a half years since I lost my grandmother and I still miss her but the sadness is now often outweighed by gratitude. I’m so grateful to have had 18 years with my grandmother, that she got to play such a central role in my upbringing. Mostly though lately I am grateful for one of the best gifts she gave me, and this world: my mother. My mother who stayed home with my brother and me every day and who always found fun activities to keep us entertained. Who used to walk me to school and drive me to dance classes. She was the parent to volunteer at our school and help us with homework. She helped us pack lunches and sometimes even dropped them off at school when we forgot them. She read to us at night and always made sure we were out the door in time for the bus in the mornings. She is the one person in the world who I feel as though I can talk to about absolutely anything with no judgment, she will just patiently listen no matter what. She is the one who took me to the library as much as I wanted when I was little and fostered my love of storytelling. When I was little I could never fall asleep when she wasn’t home and at 20 I still called her during the day on my breaks from school even though I would see her later at home. Since the pandemic, we’ve been quarantined together and have spent almost every waking minute in each other’s company and although that’s been taxing on my introverted tendencies, there is no one I would rather spend so much time with. She was taking me driving every day to practice before I got my licence last week and somehow despite spending every day together, the one-on-one time driving together felt like valued quality time. When I went to run errands with my dad one day, I ended up calling my mother half-way through because it felt wrong to go so long without talking to each other. One day I know I won't be so lucky to see her every single day, so I try to cherish the time we get to spend together right now.

I also live with my other grandmother, my father’s mother, who has become a wonderful constant presence in our house since she moved in five years ago. I remember the weekends I used to go sleep over at her house when I was little and how excited I was when she came to stay with us when my parents would go out of town. She was always a fun and positive presence when I got to spend time with her growing up but unfortunately I didn’t get to see her as often so seeing her every day is a wonderful development. She loves to bake and recently taught me to make my own lemon meringue pie, my favourite of her desserts. She taught me to embroider when I went to visit her for the day when I was probably only ten and it’s become a favourite hobby of mine. We do the crossword puzzle together every Sunday and play board games together most nights. She talks to her sister on the phone every day for over an hour even when they haven’t done anything since they last talked the day before. She is kind and supportive and always happy to help. She spends her free time volunteering to help other seniors and is fiercely independent even in a global pandemic.

All the women who raised me, my mother and two grandmothers, have taught me so much. Through their kindness, fierceness, loyalty, intelligence, courage, optimism, and wisdom I have learned to strive every day to be a little more like them. The most important lesson I have learned from them by far is that happiness is not a destination but a state of mind, a choice made everyday to live our best life by surrounding us with people that inspire us to be the best version of ourselves. That we don’t know how much time we have so it's important not to dwell on negativity, but rather make the best of what we have. Life is short, so enjoy it. I am thankful to have shared my life, even just a part of it, with some incredible women that I continue to learn from every single day.